


It Gets Better?

by Moriarzipan



Category: seaQuest
Genre: Angst, Gen, Lawrence Wolenczak, Third season, seaQuest 2032
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 12:56:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moriarzipan/pseuds/Moriarzipan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Several months after the seaQuest reappears in the year 2032, Lucas visits his father. It's a decision he comes to regret in very short order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Gets Better?

**Author's Note:**

> While this is eventually going to be a complete stand-alone short story about Lucas and his father, it's also going to serve as a prologue to a seaQuest/X-Men crossover.
> 
> As for continuity, I'm sticking to the episodes that were filmed; this fic contradicts the script for the episode "In Father's Footsteps."
> 
> And this is the first fic I've written in almost ten tears, so I apologize if my writing is a bit rusty at first.

Lucas Wolenczak flipped up the collar on his bridge coat, trying to keep the frigid wind from his neck. The uniform attracted the admiring stares of passersby; a handsome young naval officer was always a popular sight.  It was a bitterly cold day in New York City, the sort of day that lends itself to cozy hole-in-the-wall restaurants and hot food, but he felt restless and couldn't settle to anything. He'd lost track of how long he'd been wandering around the city, letting memory guide his steps while his mind hop-scotched from one inconsequential topic to another. Every time he got the urge to hail a cab, to enter a restaurant, or to head back to his hotel room, that restless energy bubbled up and kept him from acting on those impulses. He just walked.  
  
It was a sign of how preoccupied he was that he never noticed the smiles and nods directed his way when people spotted his seaQuest insignia and his ensign's stripe. While seaQuest was most popular with undersea colonists and nations that bordered the Pacific, the massive submarine had fame the world over, even in places that were far from the looming shadow of the Macroneasian empire. And Ensign Lucas Wolenczak--a handsome prodigy with sharp, cobalt blue eyes--was easily the most famous crew member aside from the captain. This was in no small part thanks to the efforts of the UEO's PR department, who were constantly trying to plaster his dimpled, high-cheekboned face on any and all possible surfaces from recruitment posters to magazine covers; his image was "good for morale" in "these troubling times," or so they often told him in nagging emails.   
  
Being prone to innocent bouts of youthful ego, he usually accepted the attention with pleasure. It was a pity, then, that he was too distracted to notice the people around him; the small gestures of kindness and gratitude might have eased the sense of loneliness that had settled over him ever more heavily the longer he was in his home state. His mind, still that of an occasionally petulant teenager, sneered at the word 'home' when he thought of it. He'd been born in Buffalo, and spent plenty of time in NYC after his newly-divorced father relocated his offices there, but this wasn't _home_ , not really. Its familiarity was somehow insulting, like an acquaintance who tries too hard to buddy up.  
  
The thoughts Lucas was trying so desperately hard not to think of kept trying to dart around the mental barriers he was continuously erecting.  
  
He had visited his father earlier in the day. In months since the seaQuest had made its miraculous reappearance after a ten year absence, they'd exchanged painfully awkward emails and had spoken even more awkwardly over a vidlink a few times. He hadn't expected a Hallmark moment when they met face to face, but the reality...even Lucas, ever a cynic when it came to his family life, hadn't imagined things could go so horribly wrong.  
  
Lucas had entered the lobby of the Wolenczak Enterprises office building nervous but not unduly so; it was natural to wonder how this first visit would go. The elegantly appointed room, with its paneled walls and granite floors, was both familiar and alien. It was all in the same style, but the furniture and plants had been updated in the decade since he'd last been here. The fountain in the foyer was the same, though the koi swimming in the pool below were now positively massive. The leather armchairs in the waiting area were in the same general grouping, though the chairs themselves had been replaced with more modern looking ones.  
  
To anyone who knew Lawrence Wolenczak, it was obvious that the public rooms at Wolenczak Enterprises were entirely the responsibility of a designer paid to create an impression on wealthy potential investors and visiting government officials; Lawrence was a man oblivious to anything besides his research. If left to his own devices, he would have decorated it like a college student's first budget apartment.  
  
His first hint that things were going to end badly was the look on the receptionist's face when she realized the identity of the young man approaching her desk. It was the look of a woman who suddenly wished she was anywhere else, the sort of look that almost seemed to say, "This would be great time to go skinny dipping in an active volcano, wouldn't it?"  He'd never been overly welcome at his father's offices, but that was because his father was easily annoyed by Lucas's constant attempts to get any kind of parental notice. Surely he'd never been on the receiving end of looks like this before.  
  
Trying to speak around the uncomfortable feeling building quickly in his chest and throat, he'd flashed her his most charming Young Officer of the UEO Flagship smile. "Nice to see you in person, Miss Freemantle. Is my father in?" It was a stupid question, a social pleasantry. His father was _always_ at the office; a long-dead marriage and an emotionally damaged son were testament to that.  
  
"Ah...well, yes, he is, Mr....ah, I mean Ensign, er..."  
  
"Lucas is fine, really." His smile took on a slightly manic look. God how it hurt  to be back here, and the receptionist's struggle to make a coherent sentence was grating on his already frayed nerves. His father's receptionists were well practiced when it came to deflecting him. For her to be this nervous...it was giving him a childish impulse to turn and run from whatever confrontation was surely awaiting him. He stowed it; he was a naval officer now, not just some angry kid who couldn't deal with his father's constant rejection.  
  
"Right, Lucas, it's just that..." She looked on the verge of telling him whatever secret was making her so uncomfortable, and his urge to flee intensified. But the moment passed, and her face morphed into a calculated professional mask that made Lucas's heart sink. Foolish to think for a moment that she could have been on his side; this was his father's domain. Smiling pleasantly (more pleasant if you ignored the pity that still radiated from her eyes, anyway), she gestured to the leather chairs and said, "Have a seat, then, Lucas. Your father is in a meeting right now, but I'll let him know you're here as soon as it ends."  
  
Lucas nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and went to sit down. In less than fifteen minutes, he would come to dearly regret spending his shore leave visiting his father.

 


End file.
